Tiffin and I were somewhere between Mudlick Road and Turkey Run Road in Buckhannon, WV. These are some rutted out abandoned country roads that are primarily used by ATV’s now. I put some 29 x 1.8’s (46mm) tires on my cross bike, and decided to see how well it did. Everything was fine, other than the frame and fork clearances for mud…

Went to Elkins yesterday to hop on the Allegheny Highlands Trail,what I like to call it, the Elkins Rail Trail. There’s sparse snow on the ground, and the trail is starting to feel kind of sloppy due to the excess moisture. With the terrain slowing me down a bit, I wasn’t expecting to be going that slow, but I still pushed my hardest.

That is my problem. When casually riding, I still end up in Zone 4-5, trying to finish as fast as possible, regardless if my goal is time or distance. I mean… this is a rail trail… Isn’t it supposed to be about fun and leisure, not blowing up at 186bpm for no reason other than trying to go faster? I don’t race, but this is still off-season.

How do people tell their selves to go slower? Do they bring along their girlfriend/wife (ba dum tsssssh!)? About 2/3rds of the way through the ride, I told myself that redlining this is silly, and I should just be going aerobic… I planned on keeping my heart rate around 140-150.

Didn’t happen. I don’t even think I grabbed my waterbottle until mile 12 or something? I did stop at the Tucker County border (unintentionally) and took some photos and video. Awesome rock walls with ice and snow aplenty. I had to jump over a two foot wide creek to get some of these shots, and this made me feel like a genius wearing carbon road shoes… I never said I was brilliant.

Well, that statement doesn’t really work out well for this situation, but you know what I mean…

The state road had completed both lanes of traffic, but did not apply the rumblestrip to either side yet. Their job on this day was to do so, leaving an entire lane perfectly paved and blocked off… for us to use! 🙂

I took some footage with my kodak zi8, but have sped it up 150% to make sure it doesn’t get boring easily.

Here ‘ya go.

What do you think? Would you do this? Was it crazy or narcissistic? Have you done it before? Fun? Lemme know in the comments section!

Well, in this case, there were no lost lives on either account, but that doesn’t mean it will not happen. Anybody have a story of crazy dogs chasing you, your friend, or anyone else? Have you ever been bitten? What kinds of precautions do you take?

This being West Virginia, have you ever been attacked by anything else? Rabid Possum/squirrel/raccoon?

My buddy, Mike Miller, had a bear lunge out at him on the trails before… Came within a very close radius of his foot/leg, and he about shat himself.

I don’t ever really worry about dogs too much. Either I ride away from them, or I throw stuff at them. I haven’t really met any vicious dogs either…. so…. yeah…

Started an event on Facebook last week where I invited 20+ people to come ride with the WVWC college students during their first week back. About half replied, and a quarter of them were planning on attending. No one showed up. It snowed like crazy two days before, and I guess that killed everyone’s appetite for a ride.

Not me!

I suited up, rode to the meeting point, and waited a whole five minutes longer than I said I would. After that, I scuttled off on my adventurous ride. The route I planned has been ridden by me several times, but never on the cross bike. I didn’t know how it would handle it, or how the snow would affect its maneuverability over rocks, dirt, and mud… For the most part, it rode like a dream. After a very arduous climb, I ended up not having brakes on the way down since the rims and canti’s were coated in ice. Luckily I was able to slow myself down with my foot, and death grip on front and rear shift levers.

At the bottom of the hill, I saw a stray horse. Not knowing much about horses, I didn’t know if I should confront it like a dog, or whether it would attack. Do horses attack people? Bite? Trample? What, anything?

After unsuccessfully wrangling’ up some horses, I went back on the ride. There were many photogenic landscapes and opportunities, but for some reason, this was the only shot I took during the ride:

I couldn’t even keep my shadow out of the photo 😦 I blame using a phone to take such pics…

By this point in the ride, I had been on the bike for almost an hour and a half, and the only part of my body that was cold were my feet, despite the temperature only being 22*F. The sun was coming out, and I knew I still had enough time to have some fun…

Off I went to Gene (Fat Tire Cycle)’s house to see why he didn’t make it to the ride. I didn’t see any vehicles there, so I decided to leave him a little surprise:

A ‘cross snow angel! I knew he would know it was me, and I thought it would be a funny gesture.

All in all, the ride was very fun, and kept me burning calories, and improving my bike handling skills by leaps and bounds. This is the first year I have really embraced cold weather riding; I’m really wondering why I wasn’t so receptive to it before….?